I'm short, yappy and..... oh, what was that bright shiny thing that just flew past?

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

China - that country that poisons babies, and then tries to pretend it didn't happen.

Right now I am feeling a little sorry for the dairy giant Fonterra.

I know people will say I talking a complete load of crock, but I reckon they've been done good and proper.

So of those of you who don't live in New Zealand and haven't heard this story on every news bulletin for the last three days - they're embroiled in a milk scandal in China.

I understand that the word 'milk' before 'scandal' doesn't actually pack that much of a punch but if you add 'baby' into the sentence you'll begin to understand where I am coming from.

Two babies in China have died so far from having contaminated milk and, as of yesterday, 1253 children had been diagnosed with illnesses linked to the milk powder - with 340 still in hospital.

This has all been blamed on infant milk made by the Sanlu Group in the Gansu Province of China. Where does a New Zealand dairy company come into all of this?

It owns forty-three percent of the company.

What exactly was wrong with the milk?

It appears a couple of farmers who were pissed off after their milk had been rejected several times by the Sanlu group decided they would get their own back on the company by poisoning other milk they sold to the group.

I'm trying really hard to think of a more heinous crime, but I don't think it comes worse than any type of abuse of babies.

I reckon even the Devil would draw the line at that.

But get this, it's not the first time this type of thing has happened in China.

Hell no, in 2004 at least thirteen babies died and more than one hundred were severely malnourished after being given fake milk formula. In some cases the milk formula had little more nutritional value than water.

Even worse, the formula was sold to impoverished farmers who then started to wonder why their babies all started to develop what became known as 'big head disease'. What these poor people didn't realise was that their babies had big heads because they weremalnourished.

What went through these people's minds?

'Hmmm, how are we going to make some money?

Sell fake bags to stupid tourists?

Rob stupid tourists?

Steal cars?

I know! Strip nutrients out of baby formula and sell it to poor people who won't know any better. Genius.'

I realise that with a population of one point three billion, you are always going to get a few colossally poisoned apples but, let's face it, this mud is going to stick like cement.